This Blog will discuss various anecdotal topics about the Post "Peak Everything" world from my daily life in which I am clearly "Holier Than Thou". Note that even the holierthanthou blog name peaked before this blog started...

Monday, December 21, 2009

The San Francisco Bay Area is home to a large number of bike commuters. The geography and demography of the area is a bit unique on the Peninsula from San Jose to San Francisco - unlike "typical" cities with jobs in the center ringed by suburbs of houses, the jobs and residences are dispersed. On my ride from San Francisco to Santa Clara with the googlers there are people who peel off in San Mateo, Foster City, Menlo Park, Palo Alto, Cupertino, and other enclaves I'm missing. We see dozens of cyclists riding the other direction as well.

One problem is that the Peninsula is split by a chunk of asphalt - US Highway 101. There are jobs on each side, and residences on both sides. On the west side, people tend to ride along the Caltrain tracks (or actually take their bike ONTO the Caltrain). On the East side, there is a route that is somewhat more pleasant in spots, including many miles of bucolic bike paths along the bay, populated by a seemingly unending parade of Kiteboarders and Feral Cats.

The problem? At some point you will need to cross the 101. Since it's a limited access freeway, that usually means an overpass with high speed traffic merging in and out of lanes to either exit or enter the freeway. This can lead to tragic results in some cases. But collisions - I believe - are less frequent than one might expect, most likely because people either learn very quickly how to cross the overpasses, find an alternate route, or give up and find another way to get where they are going.

This blog post will be a catchall to inventory a series of upcoming blog posts on the various crossings of 101, from the hairiest and scariest (Holly, Oyster Point) to the most serene (Steven's Creek Bike Path). I'm going to list them here and build the links in as the series grows. Feel free to suggest crossings that I may have missed - the overpasses are obvious but there are all sorts of "hidden" methods of getting from one side to the other. And if you'd like to volunteer to help the project, please do.

I think I have been crossed all of these except the followingDe La Cruz, Borregas, Adobe, Woodside, 19th, 3rd, San Bruno, Airport. Some of them I am looking forward to visiting, some (De La Cruz) not so much.

9 comments:

There are two additional crossings between broadway and 3rd ave. Peninsula Ave/Coyote pt and Monte Diablo ped bridge. The former has much construction right now, the latter is often strewn with glass, but ridable.

Also, 3rd has a nice bike lane in the middle of it. While a rider needs to wait for the light, it's much safer than the high speed crossings.

Lastly, I believe the 19th ave crossing is actually Fashion Island Blvd. I have taken this a number of time and prefer it to Hillsdale for getting to that train station. Btw, what caused you to cross at Hillsdale last week?

Whipple in RWC is one of the worst. There's actually a dedicated off-road bike path on the overpass itself, but to get to it, you have to go halfway down an onramp and cross right where cars are accelerating to freeway speed around a blind curve!

You're much better off just going out in traffic and crossing straight over the bridge in a regular lane, but that's no picnic.

Annoyingly this deathtrap is between my house and some nice bayside riding.

Btw, have you heard about the Menlo Park NIMBY's that want to tear down the Willow Road bike bridge because the wrong sort live on the other side?

i hope it leads to a discussion of priorities for bikes all up and down 101. specifically, i'd like to address the 'bike path' vs. the 'modified overpass'.

i think we should modify existing infrastructure, instead of building new stuff. first, slow traffic to 20 MPH within a 1/4 mi radius of the freeway -- that includes all entering and exiting traffic.

we should not have to build a bike/walk-only bridge along the corridor -- let's just fix what's there.

anyways, i'm hoping we have this debate, and then redirect the bike/walk bridge money accordingly. for instance, the one overpass in Redwood City (forget which) is ready for bike lanes, everyone agrees it needs to happen and is willing to do it, but we just lack the money for drawings.

Thanks Tom. I mentally omitted that one because "it's not an overpass" but then again neither are bike bridges. And there is a freeway offramp that enters Sierra Point.

It's good to cover because on the East Side you need to know where you are going if you want to continue South - either a somewhat hidden bike path or through hotel parking lots and up a narrow concrete ramp onto a patch of dirt onto a wooden bridge and around the dumpsters into another parking lot and... :)